On the Church Steps eBook

“Bessie,” I said, leaning over her and
taking her face in both my hands, “I have something
to tell you.”

CHAPTER III.

“I have something to tell you;” and without
an instant’s pause I went on: “Mr.
D——­ has business in England which
cannot be attended to by letter. One of us must
go, and they send me. I must sail in two weeks.”

It was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and Bessie
gave a little gasp of surprise: “So soon!
Oh, Charlie, take me with you!” Realizing in
the next instant the purport of the suggestion, she
flung away from my hands and rushed into the parlor,
where a dim, soft lamp was burning on the table.
She sat down on a low chair beside it and hid her face
on the table in her hands.

Like a flash of lightning all the possibilities of
our marriage before many days—­arranging
it with Mrs. Sloman, and satisfying my partners, who
would expect me to travel fast and work hard in the
short time they had allotted for the journey,—­all
came surging and throbbing through my brain, while
my first answer was not given in words.

When I had persuaded Bessie to look at me and to answer
me in turn, I hoped we should be able to talk about
it with the calm judgment it needed.

“To leave my wife—­my wife!”—­how
I lingered on the word!—­“in some
poky lodgings in London, while I am spending my day
among dusty boxes and files of deeds in a dark old
office, isn’t just my ideal of our wedding-journey;
but, Bessie, if you wish it so—­”

What was there in my tone that jarred her? I
had meant to be magnanimous, to think of her comfort
alone, of the hurry and business of such a journey—­tried
to shut myself out and think only of her in the picture.
But I failed, of course, and went on stupidly, answering
the quick look of question in her eyes: “If
you prefer it—­that is, you know, I must
think of you and not of myself.”

Still the keen questioning glance. What new look
was this in her eyes, what dawning thought?

“No,” she answered after a pause, slowly
withdrawing her hand from mine, “think of yourself.”

I had expected that she would overwhelm me in her
girlish way with saucy protestations that she would
be happy even in the dull London lodgings, and that
she would defy the law-files to keep me long from
her. This sudden change of manner chilled me with
a nameless fear.

“If I prefer it! If I wish
it! I see that I should be quite in your way,
an encumbrance. Don’t talk about it any
more.”

She was very near crying, and I wish to heaven she
had cried. But she conquered herself resolutely,
and held herself cold and musing before me. I
might take her hand, might kiss her unresisting cheek,
but she seemed frozen into sudden thoughtfulness that
it was impossible to meet or to dispel.

“Bessie, you know you are a little goose!
What could I wish for in life but to carry you off
this minute to New York? Come, get your hat and
let’s walk over to the parsonage now. We’ll
get Doctor Wilder to marry us, and astonish your aunt
in the morning.”